Liverpool Echo launches new edition for The Wirral

The Liverpool Echo has launched its first new edition in a decade, on the other side of the River Mersey in the Wirral.

Two new reporters have been taken on to enhance the paper’s coverage of the area, which it estimates has a population of 320,000.

The Wirral edition will carry a different front and back page, with two original editorial pages inside the paper on four days a week.

On Thursdays eight additional editorial and advertising pages will be added. The Echo said up to 24 Wirral pages will be added on Fridays.

The new edition will be competing with Newsquest’s free weekly, the Wirral Globe, which has a circulation of 111,000.

The Trinity Mirror-owned Echo had an average daily circulation of 77,849 in the second half of 2012 (down 4.5 per cent year on year), according to ABC.

Echo editor Alastair Machray said: "The Echo is Merseyside's best-selling newspaper and we've been proud to serve this region for over 130 years.

"But we recognise that Wirral is changing and we need to change with it.

"As a destination for tourists, a base for businesses and a home for families, Wirral is getting better and getting stronger.

"We see this as an opportunity so we're producing this new edition of the Echo to reflect the change.

"Many Wirral residents and advertisers were keen to have their own edition. But we also recognise many others have moved across the water from Liverpool and buy the Echo primarily for news and sport from their home city.”